The importance for the consumer electronic device industry to continuously strive to produce products that are convenient to use cannot be overstated. No doubt this is one of the reasons for the introduction of the remote control. But, as the number of devices in a home that can be controlled remotely continues to grow, so does the frustration of trying to keep each device's remote control separate from other devices' remote controls. For example, today's homes may have a separate remote control for its television, digital video disk (DVD) player, video cassette recorder (VCR) player, compact disk (CD) player, set-top box, stereo receiver, media center, personal video recorder (PVR), etc. Trying to keep this many remote controls separate and easily locatable is not only a challenge but also reduces the ease and convenience of use of each of the electronic devices.
One attempt at a solution to the problem of having so many different remote controls is the universal remote control. Existing universal remote controls have several problems. First, they rely on storing infrared (IR) codes for every specific model of consumer electronics device in existence. With the number of consumer electronic devices available it is virtually impossible for a universal remote control manufacturer to cover the proprietary IR codes for every device on the market. In addition, unless the universal remote control allows for end user updates it will not be able to control future devices that are released after the production date of the original universal remote control. Another limitation of existing universal remote controls is that they are designed to support an existing feature set, and are not extensible to control future features unless provided with a mechanism to allow user updates. The thought of downloading and upgrading software in existing universal remote controls may make the prospect of buying a new device for the digital home less appealing to a user. Yet other limitations of existing universal remote controls are that they have too many buttons and the layout of the buttons on the remote control does not always match the intuitive placement users have in their minds for specific functions on particular devices. These limitations increase the frustration associated with using a universal remote control, especially in a dark room. Universal remote controls also tend to be expensive, especially if they provide a configurable screen and/or a touch screen for activation of the remote control keys.